Thursday, December 17, 2015

Some Soccer News for Dec 17, 2015

Abby Wambach left in a cloud of NOISE. She played her last game as a professional player on Wednesday, for the USA, a 0-1 home loss to China.
-A couple things to note:
1) She had 255 international caps.
2) Scoring 184 goals!
3) 77 of them header goals!
4) It was the first USA loss in the USA in 11 years. 11 years.
5) Wambach did a lot of interviews in the run up to the game (a round-up from SI), and in every one she pointed out 2 things: The USA women deserve to paid the same as the men. And the men need a new coach cuz the one they have has failed. (Just search around, the interviews/articles are all over the place.)
6) Exit stage right. (I doubt that is the last we will hear from her.)

Mix Diskerud replies to Wambach's call for "foreign" players to be removed the USA team:

No surprise that Carli Lloyd was named the US Soccer Female Player Of The Year.

dN

Minnesota United roster news: The team has released Kalif Alhassan (who then promptly signed with Tampa Bay), Geison Moura and Alejandro Vela.
-Also, the team did not pick up the option to buy Yago who had been on loan from Vasco da Gama.
-Tiago Calvano, Brent Kallman and Juliano Vicentini are all returning for 2016 according to Wes Burdine at Northern Pitch.

Drew Beckie is the latest player to bail out from Ottawa - signing with Carolina. The 5th player to leave the team this week.
-New Ottawa head coach Paul Dalglish told local media that on his 1st day in charge 3 players asked to leave the team. They are all gone already. Along with several others now. It'll almost be like starting over.

dN

San Antonio Scorpions is now owned by Spurs Sports + Entertainment, an organization that owns the NBA San Antonio Spurs, and also owns a NBA D-League team, a WNBA team and an American Hockey League team.
-The question becomes, what happens to the NASL version team? The rumor says Spurs will move their new team to USL.

dN

Gabriel Brener who had owned 25% of the Houston Dynamo has bought the 50% stake that AEG held and now controls the team. He has partners that own part of his percentage, and Oscar De La Hoya remains a 25% owner as well.

The Final of the Copa America Centenario will be played at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford NJ. The game is scheduled for Sun Jun 26.
-16 teams will participate in the tournament.
-USA (Group A) , Brazil (Group B), Mexico (Group C) and Argentina (Group D) are the four top seeded teams for the group stage.
-USA Group Stage games:
Fri Jun 3 at Santa Clara - Levi's Stadium
Tue Jun 7 at Chicago - Soldier Field
Sat Jun 11 at Philadelphia - Lincoln Financial Field
-No word on when the actual group stage draw will take place.

Joining the 10 South American teams from CONMEBOL will be 6 CONCACAF teams: Mexico, USA, Jamaica, Costa Rica and the winners of Panama v Haiti and Trinidad + Tobago v Honduras (both games to be played on Jan 8 in Panama City.)

dN

I really didn't think Chelsea would fire Jose Mourinho this season no matter how bad things got. I was wrong. He is gone.
-Here is the team statement.